Vehicle Engineering Career

Vehicle engineers dedicate themselves to the design, creation and functionality of vehicles and their components, including automobiles, trucks, buses, and motorcycles. Traditionally, they work in the entire product life cycle from the initial design through production, distribution and marketing, though often specialize in design, research and development or manufacturing. Take some time to request information from schools in our directory that can help you become a vehicle engineer. We recommend contacting multiple schools to be sure you start out on the right track!

Vehicle engineers are professionals who integrate engineering and business acumen to ensure vehicles are developed within cost requirements. Engineers in this field utilize a bevy of scientific principles including thermodynamic and mechanical inquiry to enhance operation and developing solutions for design flaws. Upon realizing a specialty, a vehicle engineer may be asked to execute a bevy of duties and responsibilities. Some undertake the design and creation of visual models for various vehicles and their accompanying parts and features with the assistance of digital applications, enabling them to determine the best source materials to employ.

A medley of companies compete for the expertise and skills of these scientific professionals. Producers of automobiles and commercial vehicles, as well as component manufacturers, employ these types of engineers to work on luxury, sport and utility vehicles and their supporting parts. In addition to the auto industry, design firms, industrial equipment manufacturers, energy firms, and competitive racing teams endeavor to secure the services of vehicle engineers. With these types of firms, these professionals dedicate their efforts to constructing prototypes and models of parts, the application of evaluation processes, computer software, and physical integrity measurements. Along these lines, professionals may endeavor in developing equipment and parts that meet evolving market conditions, customer tastes, and government safety and health requirements. In addition, they may refine design specifications, examine the environmental implications of a project, oversee the installation of new or enhanced assets into production facility, and/or investigate realized or potential failures in an engineering system. From a business executive perspective, vehicle engineers may negotiate with suppliers in managing contracts, delivery schedules, and logistics as well as track project budgets. Global companies such as General Motors, Tesla, Chevron, Johnson Controls, and Toyota serve as a sample of the firms in the market for these types of employees.

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Real-life Example of a Transport Engineer Career

Based on the experience of several young practitioners in the profession, the field of transport engineering offers a rich professional experience. Scott Sorensen , an engineer from the University of Nebraska, developed an after school education program to teach principles of engineering to high school students, whereby they designed buildings and created electrical applications for Christmas lights. Matthew Arnold, an engineer from Kansas State University, finds the hands on nature of the field most engaging. He thrives performing outdoors, enabling him the experience the vitality absent working in an office. Both Sorensen and Arnold enjoy the state-of-the-art technology they employ on a daily basis such as self-driving vehicles. New challenges encountered have made the field particularly rewarding for Tomas Lindheimer, an engineer from the University of Kansas. He enjoys the broad concepts and intellectual curiosity the industry demands. He believes he’s constantly learning new concepts that compel him to rethink his preconceived notions.

The direct impact the field has on people’s lives serves as the most attractive part of the profession for these young professionals. Instead of sitting in an office, detached from their fellow man, these engineers see the influence their work has on the daily lives of the people they serve. Many professors and industry executives encourage aspiring students and candidates to carefully consider the impact their work has on society as a whole. It is one of a few industries where practitioners see first-hand the results their technical backgrounds have on the ways people experience their daily lives.

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Thermal Engineering Career

Professionals in the field of thermal engineering strive to develop more efficient means for transferring energy into more practical means, drawing on their expertise in heat transfer. Within an industrial context, these engineers work on solutions for fuels, exploring forms of chemical, electrical and mechanical energy. These professionals find specialization in the fields of high technology, solar power, oil and gas, power companies, as well as temperature control systems. Transforming power grids to create more affordable electricity has become one of the most popular fields utilizing the expertise of thermal engineers.

If you want to know more about becoming a thermal engineer, contact the schools listed here to learn more. It’s important to talk to as many schools as you can to determine the best way forward.

Thermal engineers dedicate their efforts to refining electronics systems and safety applications. They collaborate extensively with groups of hardware and software experts at all stages of the product cycle from initial design through the manufacturing and installation of products and systems. In this capacity, they may develop models for industrial assets rooted in computer projects for optimizing source materials and functionality.

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Structural Engineering Career Outlook

Structural Engineering focuses on the support integrity of large developments such as buildings, bridges and stadiums. Structural engineers are responsible for some of the most import constructions in history, including Washington Roebling who built the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and Gustave Eiffel who completed The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Structural engineers traditionally collaborate with a team of professionals including architects, urban planners and civil engineers, among others, to realize the completion of a project.

Federal and local governments as well as private enterprises contract these practitioners for work throughout the world, whereby they are entrusted to ensure public safety by meeting building codes and standards. For buildings, these professionals achieve this by developing the components such as roof framing columns and foundations. In bridges, they develop the piers, deck and/or stringers. In addition, they select the most appropriate materials including wood, concrete, steel and/or aluminum, thereby protecting the structure and surrounding communities in the case of natural disasters, weather, collisions or explosions. To determine the best materials, structural engineers rely on digital hardware and software applications for modeling and analysis.

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Software Engineering Degrees

Most people are familiar with older, more traditional engineering fields such as mechanical, civil, or electrical. Software Engineering is a relatively new discipline, but in today’s increasingly interconnected world, it is becoming more and more important.

Software Engineering differs from Computer Science or Web Design in that you are formulating how the overall software system functions, and how it works within its intended hardware environment.

Software Engineers are responsible for every phase of a development project, not just for writing the computer code. Upon the initiation of a project, they make sure requirements are documented and validated.

This assures the entire project is working toward the correct goal. They then move on to system design, often overseeing the creation of software prototypes to present to clients for additional validation.

Once the design is solid, Software Engineers manage the overall development effort to make sure the pieces are coming together as planned. Finally, they create and oversee test cases which assure system functionality is complete and traceable to the requirements generated at the time of project initiation.

Software Engineering is the discipline that makes sure computer systems are developed methodically and result in building the right product with quality built in from the beginning.

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Life of a Petroleum Engineer

Petroleum engineers typically design equipment to extract oil and gas, and develop ways to force oil out of wells through injection of water, chemicals, gases, or steam.

They develop drilling plans, survey, evaluate, and test wells. They use computer-controlled drilling to connect separated deposits to a single well. They ensure proper installation, maintenance, and operation of oil field equipment.

Reservoir engineers optimize production with proper well placement and enhanced recovery techniques. Drilling engineers oversee the technical aspects of drilling exploration, production, and injection wells. Production and subsurface engineers direct connections between reservoirs and wells, overseeing downhole monitoring equipment and flow control, sand control, and perforations.

They select surface equipment to separate fluids (oil, natural gas, and water), and they evaluate artificial lift methods.

Emerging career choices involve pollution cleanup, hydrology, and underground waste disposal (the subsurface injection of carbon dioxide to reduce greenhouse gases). Petroleum engineers are also educated in geothermal energy production, in situ uranium leaching, and coal gasification.

The known worldwide oil and gas reserves are larger than ever. Found in diverse areas, these resources provide opportunities for assignments in the Middle East, Asia, South America, Australia, and beyond.

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Main Focus of a Nuclear Engineering Degree

Nuclear engineering is the most integrated of the engineering disciplines. The many components of nuclear systems (medical imaging, nuclear fission reactors, ultrasensitive contraband detectors, and fusion reactors) must all be understood as well as how they relate to one another. Nuclear engineers must be experts in their primary field, as well as knowledgeable in other fields such as electronics, thermodynamics, physics, and materials science. The fundamentals of one science are often the same tools used in solving problems in the other disciplines.

An undergraduate degree in nuclear science and engineering develops the fundamentals of nuclear processes—their production, interactions, and radiation measurements. These studies bring the student all the way to the design phase of nuclear-based systems, stressing social, health, and energy and security impacts.

Studies also incorporate computer methods, thermal-fluid engineering, and electronics—critical tools for a nuclear engineering career.

The Bachelor of Science degree in Nuclear Science and Engineering prepares students for careers in the application and engineering of low-energy nuclear physics. This includes design, analysis, and operation of radiation systems and their applications, such as fission reactors and accelerators, and biomedical uses. Students are also prepared for graduate study in a wide range of engineering and physical sciences.

A five-year program offers an opportunity to earn a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Nuclear Science and Engineering simultaneously.

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